


Antaresia

by AarinsRitsuka, HolyCatsAndRabbits



Series: Alba [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Crowley, Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a barn owl, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crowley is (still) Raphael, Crowley is still a serpent, Demon Aziraphale, Established Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Established Relationship, Fan Art, Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019, Good omens fan art, Humor, Light Dom/sub, Lust, Other, Possessive Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Queen lyrics, Secrets, Soft Dom Aziraphale, The Bentley (Good Omens) - Freeform, Valentine's Day, demonic form sex, radio show, reverse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:21:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22685413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AarinsRitsuka/pseuds/AarinsRitsuka, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolyCatsAndRabbits/pseuds/HolyCatsAndRabbits
Summary: This fic takes place in a fantasticreverse AUcreated by Sparky (AarinsRitsuka, Crowleyisms), where the demon Aziraphale has a library full of secrets for sale, and the archangel Raphael the Healer has fled Heaven due to the temptation to ask dangerous questions of God. Raphael is living in hiding on Earth under the name Crowley, reaching out to those hurting souls who need him via a radio show.Includes art by Sparky!"Aziraphale had never tried to make Crowley love him. He’d had enough sexual fantasies about the angel to fill a library, but it had never occurred to Aziraphale that he might live any of them, because it had never seemed possible that Crowley could fall in love with him. If he had known that was an option, Aziraphale would have tried to orchestrate it. But he hadn’t, and so after 6000 years, loving Crowley was easy, but fighting for Crowley was a skill that Aziraphale had not yet learned. He’d been possessive of Crowley in the past, always. But he’d tried to keep it understated, knowing it wasn’t his place.Now, however, it was."
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Alba [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631878
Comments: 103
Kudos: 295
Collections: Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019, NSFW Ineffable Husbands Week 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a sequel to Tyto Alba, so If you want to see how this particular Crowley and Aziraphale got together, you can find that there (first kiss, first time, friends to lovers, the works)! You don’t have to read Tyto Alba first, but this fic does take place after it, and thus contains spoilers for it.
> 
> I love these characters so much and I'm so happy to get a chance to write for them again! The greatest compliment I can get as an author is to have a collaborator ask to do another fic together! Tyto Alba was technically a gift, but Sparky is the creator of the AU and its characters, so we did work together for the original fic as well. All art in the series is done by Sparky.
> 
> Crowley uses the nickname “Alba” for Aziraphale (an AU version of him calling Aziraphale “angel”). It’s taken from the scientific name of the barn owl, which is Aziraphale’s demon animal familiar: tyto alba, literally “owl white.” The nickname is ironic, as Aziraphale no longer has white wings, because he’s a demon.
> 
> The title of this fic, Antaresia, is a genus of pythons, which were named after the star Antares. The whole genus is sometimes called “Children’s pythons” after its type species, A. childreni, named after John George Children. I don’t know if Crowley is actually a python, but there were a lot of cool coincidences with this name for a serpent angel who made stars, and likes children, and whose first name is Anthony, so I went with it. Antaresia is pronounced “an-tar-EE-zsa” or in IPA /æntɑr'iʒə/

**3500 BC**

**Egypt**

Crowley expected to see a lot of things that night. Things typical for a scene like this: searchers with torches, a few people organizing, instructing, answering questions. Distraught parents in the center of it all, their family gathered close as if holding them could somehow pull out of the darkness the one who should be there but wasn’t. A missing child.

What Crowley _didn’t_ expect to see was the demon Aziraphale. But there he was, appearing out of nowhere himself, white curls shining in the torchlight, darkly intelligent eyes taking in the surroundings without giving away anything in return. There was a strength to his stature beneath the softness of his form. He was, as always, the most beautiful creature Crowley had ever seen.

He had to be, of course. That was Aziraphale’s job as a demon. To tempt.

Crowley didn’t care about that, not now, not tonight. He made his way through the crowd to Aziraphale’s side, and for a brief moment, Aziraphale was unable to hide what he was feeling: true happiness to see Crowley. Crowley took it in gratefully, one small speck of brightness on this night.

Crowley and Aziraphale had met several centuries before, and they’d crossed paths here and there on Earth since then. They seemed to be ending up in the same place more and more often, and that was—somehow _nice._

Crowley had been in Egypt a little while. It was very pleasant here, very advanced. Cities instead of just villages, brick walls, people permanently in one place. The humans had outsmarted the Nile itself, and now they were in charge of where it flowed and when. And they were religious, believing that their fates lay in the hands of something spiritual.

“The child wandered off into the fields somewhere after dinner, he’s just a little thing, too young,” Crowley said. “I came because I sensed the parents, their fear and grief. But—” He nearly growled with frustration. “I can’t help them, I can’t comfort them, because I can’t sense _him._ I don’t know, maybe he’s not as scared as they are, maybe it’s just that I can never sense everyone. The logic behind it is...ineffable.” Crowley wouldn’t question it, of course, not Heaven or his own role as one of its angels. It wasn’t like questioning would do any good anyway.

When it seemed clear that Crowley was done talking, Aziraphale said, quietly and carefully, “I know where he is.”

The first thing that crossed Crowley’s mind was, regrettably, suspicion. Aziraphale seemed to expect that. He watched Crowley warily, looking just a little...fragile.

The notion passed quickly. Crowley knew in his heart that Aziraphale had not harmed this child. There was a much more likely reason why he would know how to locate the lost. Aziraphale was no ordinary demon, sent up to Earth to make trouble in general. He had a very specific job: to deal in secrets. Information came to Aziraphale regularly, deposited in his mind, ready for him to sell for the price of a mortal sin: greed, envy, pride, wrath, sloth, gluttony, or lust. Humans seeking answers would have to put their souls on the line—only later repentance and penance would put them back into Heaven’s good books.

Angels, however, were given no second chances, being held to a higher standard. One mortal sin was all it took for an angel to Fall. And it was always a goal of demons to cause the Fall of angels, to swell the demonic ranks.

But Aziraphale was looking up at Crowley like he always did, like he always had, as if Crowley were something untouchable. “You don’t want me to tell you,” he said.

Crowley wasn’t sure if that was meant to be an observation or an instruction. “I’m not asking,” he answered, and this seemed to relieve Aziraphale. In which case, it seemed only fair that Crowley take a turn at being bad at _his_ job. “And you aren’t going to tell anyone without a deal in place,” he said firmly. Aziraphale would be punished by Hell for giving a secret without collecting a sin as price, and Crowley wasn’t willing to let him go through that.

The demon looked rather shocked, his beautiful dark eyes wide, but he didn’t argue. And thus, that night became the first of many times to come when an archangel and a demon found themselves walking toward a mutual goal, side by side.

The night was cold. People were dressed in cloaks and children were wrapped in blankets. Crowley looked out over the darkened fields, hoping the earth still had some warmth in it, that the grain would block the wind.

He turned to Aziraphale. “Is the child—” He stopped. “Can’t ask you that.”

Aziraphale seemed to be mentally calculating his answer. “He hasn’t been gone long,” he said carefully. “It stands to reason that if he’s found soon, he’ll be all right.”

“Can’t ask you if he’s injured either.”

Aziraphale looked amused now. “Not much to injure children in fields, is there?”

“No, I suppose not.” Crowley felt himself relax a little. “So can you tell the child where he is? Would that work?”

“I’m afraid it’s a secret from him as well,” Aziraphale answered. “And I won’t take payment from a child.”

Crowley didn’t mean to look at Aziraphale in surprise, but he must have failed at it, because Aziraphale huffed at him. “I have _standards,”_ he said crossly. “Besides, there are plenty of adults to tempt.” His voice softened. “Of course, if it turns out to be the only way—”

“No,” Crowley agreed. “Let’s focus on the adults.” He nodded toward the crowd. “The parents are the obvious choice. But—”

“Distraught people don’t make good deals,” Aziraphale interrupted, sounding annoyed. “They have trouble understanding. They want to agree to things before they know what they are, and then they can’t comprehend how to follow through. It’s messy.”

Aziraphale, Crowley knew, did not like messes. He was always perfectly put together, never a white curl out of place, clean and sweet smelling and dressed in fine clothes. Of course, messiness as a reason for a demon not to charge parents a mortal sin for the return of their child was bullshit, but Crowley pretended to see the logic in it.

“That leaves the searchers,” Crowley mused, “but the problem is, they’re all good people. I can feel them from here.”

“Not the type to sin easily,” Aziraphale agreed.

“And I’d hate for them to incur punishment for this,” Crowley said. “But I suppose—” He looked around, trying to find a likely candidate. A father with young kids of his own, striding out into the darkness with a torch? His wife trying to comfort the terrified mother of the missing child? One of the village leaders marking out searched areas on a map? The elderly lady handing out hot food and drinks?

“I think,” Aziraphale said, with a little hesitation to his voice, “that you may not be looking at this from the right perspective.” He wouldn’t meet Crowley’s eyes as he spoke, gazing out over the field instead. “In my line of work, I...find it useful to search people’s hearts for what sins lie close beneath the surface.”

“You sense those?” Crowley asked. “The darker things? Here?”

“Everywhere,” Aziraphale said, with a bit of a humorless laugh.

“So what are we looking for?”

“Well, sometimes,” Aziraphale said, scanning the crowd, “if you work things out properly, the price can be its own reward.”

“Oh?”

He looked up at Crowley. “Well, take pride, for instance.”

“Pride? Here? What—you mean, find someone who wants to play hero? Someone who wants to save the day, take all the glory, and that’s both the sin and the prize they trade for?”

Aziraphale gave him a pleased look. “That would do nicely.”

“But the point is, we’d find the child.” Crowley looked at the demon with some awe. “It’s brilliant, Aziraphale.”

A look of surprise passed over Aziraphale’s face again, and then it was masked by a careful indifference. “Business,” he said, but there was a hint of warmth to his voice.

It was at that point in their 500-year-old relationship that Crowley started to realize something. Demons could sense the sinister things in life, the pain and shadows. Angels could sense the light. And Crowley was beginning to sense something very light inside of Aziraphale, where there should have been no such thing. 

“Have you got a likely candidate?” Crowley asked. 

Aziraphale nodded toward the brick wall by the fields. “Young man with dark hair, parading about, giving orders that no one’s listening to.”

“I see him.”

Aziraphale met Crowley’s eyes, a little caution there.

“Go ahead,” Crowley told him.

And Aziraphale did, leaving an angel to witness as a demon stalked a prize. Just to watch Aziraphale’s graceful way of moving was mesmerizing, and Crowley recognized, not for the first time, what a true threat Aziraphale could be to him, if the demon ever did try to tempt him, whether with answers to dangerous questions or something far simpler, yet much stronger. It seemed impossible that Aziraphale would not know that, that he could not sense what Crowley desired. And yet he’d never made Crowley a target.

Crowley watched the young man speak gleefully to Aziraphale, and then run off into the fields with great haste, striking out alone in an untested direction. A few moments later, he returned with the child in his arms, and then it was cheers, and tears, and Crowley couldn’t contain his own happiness, hugging people and laughing, reveling in the love everyone was sharing.

Aziraphale simply watched impassively at Crowley’s side. But the lightness inside of him burned still brighter. Crowley had come here tonight to help the parents and their child. He was an angel, he cared about them. Aziraphale had come to help Crowley. He was a demon. And he cared even more.

Somewhere amid their last few meetings, in the laughter or the bantering, the drinking of wine, the telling of ridiculous stories, the sharing of time together, something had happened to Aziraphale that Crowley would have thought impossible. Demons couldn’t love, that was the accepted wisdom. They were certainly thought to be incapable of real and pure love, the kind that led to feelings like empathy, self-sacrifice, and generosity. 

Aziraphale probably would have been just as shocked if he’d known he was in love with Crowley. He didn’t seem to. And in all honesty, it would not be a kindness to tell him. But there were things that Crowley could do. Things he wanted to do anyway.

They stood together when it was over, watching the humans disperse, home-bound and happy. Aziraphale looked as if he were feeling a little more contented himself, more relaxed. Crowley smiled to see it. “Are you staying nearby?” he asked.

Aziraphale’s dark eyes held a look of guarded hunger at the question. “Not far,” he said softly. “I’ve got some wine in if you’d like to come by. It is a nice night for a flight.” 

And with that, Aziraphale unfurled a large and very beautiful set of wings behind himself. They weren’t white, of course—only angels could have white wings. But neither were they terribly dark. A mottled pattern of cream and warm browns ran through them. They looked like the softest wings Crowley had ever seen. He folded his hands together to resist trying to touch.

Instead, he managed to ask, “You’re an owl?”

“Partially,” Aziraphale confirmed. “Yourself?”

“Serpent. I just have the usual wings. For an archangel.” Crowley watched Aziraphale’s face carefully, and there was no surprise there. Crowley’s rank must have been one of the things Aziraphale simply knew, a secret dropped into his mind. It did surprise Crowley a little, though, to find Aziraphale was aware of it. Archangels were very strong, and Aziraphale bore no demonic rank. He was a mere soldier. Crowley could easily have struck this demon down for wanting to tempt someone with the secret of the lost child, for making a deal in Crowley’s presence. Crowley could have tortured the secret out of him instead. Aziraphale must have trusted that he wouldn’t. 

Crowley released his own wings, white and fluffy and rather ridiculously showy. Aziraphale gave them a brief glance with widened eyes and then looked away, flapping his own wings and rising into the air.

It had been a long time since Crowley had flown. He didn’t do it much, preferring to walk or miracle himself places, because leaving the Earth, climbing toward Heaven, filled Crowley with unease. It had been several centuries since he’d visited, and hopefully it would be millennia more before he ever saw those empty white halls again.

Heaven for mortal souls was a paradise. It was not so for angels. At least, not all angels. There were some who were comfortable in Heaven, walking the same path day after day, century after century, never questioning. Crowley had never questioned, either. But he’d wanted to. He’d been headed for a Fall, he knew that, even though he supposedly was one of God’s favorites. The archangel Raphael, the star-maker. The Healer of souls.

But there weren’t many in Heaven who needed healing, and Crowley had told himself at first that this was why he had started visiting Earth so frequently. But every time he went below, it got harder to go back home to Heaven after. It got harder to see the other angels. It got harder to follow the rules without question, because the rules sometimes made no sense. Why were angels restricted on the number of miracles they could perform to help humans? Why were there reprimands for angels who saved lives in an unauthorized mission? God _loved_ humans, they all knew this. But if She thought that it was wrong that bureaucracy was preventing angels from aiding them, She said nothing. Crowley understood Aziraphale’s feelings a bit on this one. Heaven was a _mess._ On Earth, things were simpler. You see a hurt, you heal it. He didn’t know why it ever had to be more complicated than that.

One day, with his feet firmly on the ground of Earth, Crowley had realized that he wasn’t going back. And so he was reborn, in a way, as Crowley. He found great comfort in this new life, sensing human souls in pain and reaching out to heal them, on his own, no rules, no quotas, no assignments. Actually _doing_ something to help people, every day, as often as he liked, as often as he could. Protecting others from harm while he protected himself from running up against white walls that had no give, rules that had no logic, and facts that could not be questioned even though they were blatantly untrue.

The strange thing was, Crowley was still loyal to God. He loved Her, and he would do anything to remain true to Her, even to the point of removing himself from the temptation of asking questions that could separate him from God even more severely than he was now.

Crowley hadn’t actually been given leave from Heaven, though. Even if he had, Crowley wouldn’t trust the other angels not to come looking for him, not to try to persuade him to do one thing or another using the company line. So he hid. He’d thought it would be a hopelessly lonely life without his own kind. But on Earth he’d met a demon who wanted to help him. Who loved him. Who took off into the night sky with him, rising toward Heaven, and with Aziraphale by his side Crowley was not afraid.

When they landed outside Aziraphale’s room, a small dwelling far from the center of the city, he said, “My name isn’t really Crowley. It’s Raphael. The Healer, you know. Star-maker.” He moved aside the sleeve of his robe to show a piece of the evidence: an array of tiny golden heavenly bodies in orbit around his wrist. “It’s a clock of sorts. Keeps real planetary time. Some won't move for years, others—blink and you'll miss them.” 

Something violet and gold peeked out from beneath his sleeve then, and Crowley twisted his arm a little, beckoning it down into view. The colors spread, enveloping his lower arm, golden stars and purple sky. “This is the constellation Serpens. It’s a little shy, but I think it will like you.” He traced a gentle finger over the living tattoo, the closest companion of his life. “In the sky, Serpens is part of the larger constellation Ophiuchus, which is the serpent and its bearer, Asclepius. Well, that’s what he’ll be called eventually. He slew the snake but then watched it be reborn. It inspired him to become a healer, to try to give second life to others. I’ve followed that advice myself in more than one way, I must admit.”

Aziraphale looked from Crowley’s arm to his face with dark predator’s eyes, demonic wings flexing behind him. He had clearly known none of this. _“What are you doing?”_ he demanded, staring at Crowley like he was quite a bit less bright than the stars he’d created.

“Making a friend,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale looked no less disturbed. “Why?”

“Because I don’t have one, other than Serpens. And I don’t think you do either.”

“You can’t want a demon to be your friend,” Aziraphale said firmly, as if he were lecturing Crowley on the rules of basic angelic safety, as if they weren’t standing together outside his home, preparing to spend an evening alone together.

Crowley smiled. “I left Heaven on purpose. I don’t want another angel for a friend.”

“So you’re left with demons, is that it?”

“Well, I don’t particularly want a demon for a friend either. Not most of them, anyway. Just you.”

All amusement faded from Aziraphale’s face. “Crowley— _Raphael—_ I damn angels. Do you understand that? That is my job. I sell _secrets._ Things like people’s true names.”

Crowley said softly, “I don’t think you’ve ever met a rule you didn’t want to break.” 

Aziraphale made some sort of quiet but very demonic growling noise. But in his eyes, Crowley could see the truth warring to come out. Aziraphale wanted this. He wanted as much as Crowley would give him.

“I trust you,” Crowley told him. “You can argue against it all you want, but it’s a fact. You trust me too. You know I can smite you if I want to, and you know I won’t. We’re friends, Aziraphale.”

There was another growling noise and then the demon snapped, “Well, what are you in the mood for now, then? A bite to eat? Or are you going to tell me God’s shoe size?”

Crowley grinned. “Alcohol. Quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol.”

Aziraphale huffed out a laugh, seeming to surprise himself. “Now _that,”_ he said, looking a little relieved, “we might be able build a friendship on.”


	2. Chapter 2

**February 13, 2022**

**(Three years post-Armageddon’t)**

**South Downs, England**

Love was in the air. Aziraphale was not amused.

It wasn’t that Aziraphale hated love, of course. He couldn’t, having felt it for nearly 6000 years for his best friend and eventual lover. He couldn’t, because Crowley felt it for him as well. Love was a beautiful thing, and demons weren’t supposed to feel it, but to hell (literally) with the rules, was usually Aziraphale’s opinion. Aziraphale loved Crowley a little more every time he saw him.

The problem was, so did everybody else.

Right now on the white couch in the living room, there was a snake. This was not unusual for the little cottage up the road from the sea with the charming flower garden and the equally well-tended personal library. The snake was large enough to take up most of the couch, and his dorsal scales were a lovely gold color at the moment, transitioning smoothly into a pink underbelly. You could tell the mood of the snake by his color, and Aziraphale liked that he was so content today. What he didn’t like was the reason. It was February 13. Almost sodding _Valentine’s Day._

Valentine’s Day was a stupid little human holiday named for a martyred saint who would have been appalled that his death date had become an occasion to trade candy hearts. Aziraphale had thought it ridiculous when England had started celebrating it in the 17th century. Crowley, of course, had loved it. And like anything else he loved, he had been terribly eager to share it with his best friend.

The blasted angel had shown up at Aziraphale’s library of secrets one gray February 14th with his scarlet curls in a queue and golden eyes amused, his hands full of chocolates and flowers— _just to perk up the library a little, Alba, it can get so dreary in here in the wintertime—_ and Aziraphale, as always, had been powerless to resist anything Crowley did with that beautiful smile on his face. Aziraphale had been willfully ignorant of being in love at that point, but it hadn’t mattered. Love is as love does, after all, and he’d welcomed the angel’s visit, as he always did.

Crowley and Aziraphale saw each other fairly often, of course, as often as they could arrange it, but there was no other long-standing anniversary that they held to like Valentine’s Day. Only on February 14 would Crowley appear without fail, with flowers for the library and sweets of some kind for the demon who ran it. Aziraphale came to anticipate the visit, to long for it. It got to the point where he’d close the library every year on that day, not wanting his job to get in the way, making sure he’d be free for lunch or dinner or wherever Crowley would invite him.

These treasured visits were not why Aziraphale hated Valentine’s Day. There were two very good reasons, though. The first had been that at the end of the lunch or dinner or late-night bottle of scotch on the library couch, Crowley would leave, and Aziraphale would have spent the entire stupid human _holiday of love_ with the person he desired more than anything in the world, without ever having touched him.

There were fantasies, so many of them, long and lovely, about Crowley walking through the door of the library on Valentine’s Day and leaving late the next morning with his angelic curls a mess, his clothes a little worse for wear, and a dazed, yet satisfied look on his face.

They were only fantasies, of course, because Crowley going to Aziraphale’s bed would have caused the angel to Fall. It would have been a mortal sin at the time, that of lust, because Crowley had not been in love with Aziraphale then—not yet. He cared for Aziraphale more than any other being in creation, that had been obvious for millennia by that point. But he hadn’t truly fallen in love until one afternoon in 1934 when Crowley had been attacked by humans and Aziraphale had come to his rescue. They’d made love that day, for the first and last time for the next 85 years, driven apart afterward by fears of Heaven and Hell punishing them for it. 

But now, they shared a bed, a cottage, a life together, Aziraphale and his beautiful angelic serpent. Aziraphale’s desires were no longer a threat to Crowley, but a promise of love given and returned. And so the first reason for hating the holiday no longer existed.

But the other reason was still in force: the humans. Aziraphale liked to think of Valentine’s Day as _their_ day, an anniversary which he and Crowley had shared for several hundred years. But it would never be theirs alone.

Aziraphale and Crowley had not lived together before the Almostpocalypse. Crowley had never actually stayed in one place quite this long. He’d been in hiding, moving constantly, having multiple dwelling places, with Aziraphale being the only other one to always know where these places were. (He was very good at keeping secrets, after all.) So Crowley had never gotten to know his neighbors very well before. Now he and Aziraphale knew just about everyone in a two-mile radius, and Aziraphale was coming to understand just how strange things could get when an archangel put down roots in a place.

For one thing, there was the good luck. Crowley swore he wasn’t doing it on purpose, and Aziraphale mostly believed him, but it really was rather ridiculous. When Crowley was about, things just went well. When he visited a school to read books to the children, everyone got top marks on their homework. When he stopped by a hospital room to check on a friend, infections cleared up on the whole ward. Farmer’s market? Everyone sold all their produce. Public library? People made donations and wet umbrellas were left by the front door. Coffee shop? Everyone’s drinks came out right _and_ they were polite to the staff.

That was all well and good, and par for the course of being an angel, probably, but the problem was that the humans had started to notice, and even if they didn’t quite know why, they were drawn to Crowley. They loved it when he came into their shops and restaurants. They loved to see him walking down the beach or out in his garden. Their _dogs_ loved him, and wasn’t it funny how Crowley always seemed to have a tennis ball about him to throw for them, despite the fact that _nowhere_ in those extremely tight trousers that Crowley wore could you possibly fit a tennis ball? Not that Aziraphale was complaining about the trousers.

The humans always wanted to talk to Crowley, to tell him long-winded stories and share recipes, to ask his advice about growing flowers or herbs, to blather on for ridiculous amounts of time about the weather. It was ironic how often these conversations made Aziraphale want to cause the skies to open up in a thunderstorm right then and there.

It was at its worst around Valentine’s Day, the humans predisposed to be extra warm and loving to everyone, and Crowley drank it in—see how sunny and gold his scales were this morning. _Oh, Alba, can’t you just feel the love in the air?_ he would ask, with a beautiful smile.

The problem was not that Aziraphale couldn’t feel it. The problem was that it was too damned much, and it was all aimed in one particular direction.

The humans came by the cottage in an endless parade during the second week of February. _Oh, Crowley, just thought I’d stop by with this bread I made to say thank you for visiting my nan the other day, and here, we all made you a card! Oh, Crowley, I had some leftover jam, thought you’d like some, and picked up one of those pretty little cakes that Mrs. Jackson makes. Happy Valentine’s Day!_

They even brought him _chocolates_ and _flowers,_ the way Crowley always had for Aziraphale.

They were just humans, Aziraphale tried to remind himself. Just humans, and Crowley didn’t love them in return, not like he loved Aziraphale. They didn’t know Crowley, not really. They hadn’t spoken gently with him on dark nights in war zones when Crowley was exhausted from the anguish of not being able to heal every man in every foxhole on either side of the front line. They hadn’t met him at countless restaurants around the world, sampling wine together, or filled the library with laughter into the wee hours of the morning. They hadn’t spent afternoons arguing heatedly with him about which Agatha Christie play was the best, despite the fact that neither of them remotely cared or could even name all the plays.

They hadn’t knelt with him in the sand one morning on a little island in the tropics, watching as the sea receded, knowing the water would return in an immense wave, drowning all those who lived in the villages behind them. They hadn’t held his hand, half in comfort and half in an attempt to join angelic and demonic power to ward off the wave, and to hell with Hell if they found out Aziraphale had helped him. Hell never did, as it happened, and he and Crowley had soothed the sea that morning, saved all those lives. Aziraphale had woken later back in his library with his head in the lap of an angel who was slowly carding through his white curls with his fingers, healing Aziraphale’s exhaustion with ethereal magic. Crowley had moved away as soon as Aziraphale had revived, but there had been tears of gratitude in his eyes. Surely Crowley had never given a look like that to anyone else his entire life.

Really, was it so terribly wrong not to want to share one’s life partner with the rest of the world?

It was a Thursday morning. The holiday was not until tomorrow. Aziraphale had nothing in particular to do at present, so he sat in an armchair in the living room and picked up a book. A moment later he had a very large snake wound round his neck and curled in his lap. Aziraphale pressed a kiss to his beautiful head and was rewarded by a flashing of the scales as they turned an even deeper gold with happiness. The snake promptly drifted off to sleep beneath Aziraphale’s book and all was well. Until there was a knock on the cottage door.

Aziraphale ignored it. Unfortunately, Crowley picked up his head and looked toward the door. “Just because we’re home doesn’t mean we have to answer,” Aziraphale reminded him.

It was really rather ridiculous, however, how easily Aziraphale could read emotions on a serpentine face, and he sighed. “Fine. We’ll go see which of your admirers has brought you a cake this time.”

“You like cakesssss,” hissed the snake.

“When they don’t interrupt my reading,” Aziraphale snapped. Crowley just arranged himself around Aziraphale’s shoulders. It was an attractive young man at the door, holding a bottle of wine and a handmade Valentine. His eyes widened at the sight of the snake, but unfortunately, he thought it was “awesome.”

Ten minutes later, just as Aziraphale had settled back into his chair, it was an attractive young woman with biscuits.

Aziraphale gave up on his book. Crowley gave up on snake form and moved out of sight to shift back into looking more or less human (the eyes were serpentine no matter what). And then chatted quite a while with the young lady out in the garden. Aziraphale could have joined them, but he wasn’t in the mood to be nice to someone who was going to touch Crowley on the arm when she laughed. When Crowley bid her farewell and came back into the cottage, Aziraphale suggested that they drive to London for the day. A place where they had no neighbors.

oOo

They ended up at the Ritz, an old haunt of theirs. A table had miraculously opened up, and for a little while, everything seemed fine. Crowley didn’t eat much, but he loved to watch Aziraphale enjoy food, and he liked the red wine that Aziraphale suggested. It brought back memories, times in the past where they’d met at restaurants, just as they were now, except that now Aziraphale could eat one-handed, his other hand on the table top, curled around Crowley’s.

There were two problems with this idea of Aziraphale’s, though. The first was that neighbors weren’t the only ones who were attracted to Crowley. And the second was that, London or the seaside, it was still February 13.

Their waiter hovered more than usual. The people at other tables kept watching Crowley. It didn’t help that the angel himself was talking all about a new rose bush that someone or other had given him (Aziraphale knew exactly who it was, that git that ran the souvenir shop by the beach). And then they were interrupted by two women from a nearby table who approached them with a bottle of wine. Crowley greeted them with one of his smiles, and that was the end of that.

“Oh, I’m so sorry to bother you,” one of them lied, “but earlier my friend and I were trying to decide between two wines, this one and the one you have. I don’t suppose you’d want to trade them? So we could all taste them both?”

“Of course,” Crowley said, and so they did, and when the women finally went back to their own table, Crowley grinned at Aziraphale. “Like I said, Alba, you can just _feel_ the love in the air.”

“Indeed,” Aziraphale replied smoothly. “For example, those two share a love that their husbands don’t know about.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows behind his dark glasses. “Oh,” he said, clearly trying to smother a laugh. “Get that as a secret in your head, did you?”

“Mmmm.”

Crowley leaned forward across the table, and this Aziraphale liked. “Who else?” he asked, in a scandalized tone, and Aziraphale found himself laughing. He pointed out a few other couples: “The businessman and his secretary—that’s a classic. The two chaps to your left get quite a lot of work done together on the blond one’s desk. Oh, and that couple—” this one wasn’t quite in the same line, but Aziraphale was unable to keep himself from giving Crowley something that would please him. “She’s pregnant and plans to tell him on Valentine’s Day. It will be a welcome surprise.” 

This caused the angel to break out into a glorious smile, and he squeezed Aziraphale’s hand. “I’ll give them a blessing.”

“Of course you will.”

After lunch, they went for a walk in the park, and Crowley pulled Aziraphale close, wrapping an arm around him. This went a long way to helping Aziraphale’s mood, as did seeing Crowley out in the sunshine. It was quite chilly for a walk, of course, but Aziraphale made sure that his poor cold-blooded serpent was dressed warmly enough, in a slender white coat that was long enough to nearly brush the ground, and white gloves. Crowley’s beautiful scarlet hair rested around his shoulders, partially spilling into the generous hood of the coat. 

Aziraphale had thrown a black cloak over his clothes. Crowley liked the cloak. He’d remarked to Aziraphale once that it was _almost back in style again!_ Aziraphale wasn’t ever unaware of style trends, he just had a great deal of patience. Everything came back around eventually, so he saw no purpose in constantly updating his clothes. Lately he’d been wearing a classic suit in a warm brown, with feathering at the edges of the coat, and a plush cream-colored ascot. Crowley, who was never one to tease maliciously, had pronounced it _elegant,_ and that was enough for Aziraphale.

The park was full of other couples, but of course, plenty of them were looking at Crowley instead of their own companions. Aziraphale decided that perhaps he should give them something to look at. He brought Crowley’s gloved hand up to his mouth and kissed his fingers.

Crowley grinned at him. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Alba.”

“You’re early. It’s not until tomorrow.”

“Valentine’s Day is a whole week. I’ve told you this.”

“Oh, well, that’s my mistake,” Aziraphale said. “And here I thought the thirteenth was the practice day.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows. “Practice day?”

“You know,” said Aziraphale, as if it were obvious. “The day where you practice what you want to do on Valentine’s Day.”

A soft smile stole across Crowley’s face. “Oh,” he said. “Like what?”

Aziraphale crooked his finger, and the angel drew in closer, until he was finally near enough for Aziraphale to press their mouths together. Crowley made one of those funny little vocal noises that he was so prone to, and then wrapped both arms around Aziraphale, pulling him into an embrace. The kiss grew deeper but no less gentle. Aziraphale slipped a hand behind Crowley’s neck to tangle in his red curls, and Crowley made another lovely noise, this one just loud enough for Aziraphale to hear, and no one else.

When the kiss broke apart, Crowley pulled Aziraphale against him so that the demon’s head rested against his shoulder. “You see?” he asked, in a very pleased voice. “There _is_ love in the air. Even you’re caught up in it, you poor demon.”

Aziraphale, who was quite occupied in now delivering possessive glares at anyone who’d been watching Crowley earlier, made some sort of noise that he hoped sounded like agreement. But he looked up when he felt Crowley move one of his arms away, and realized that the angel was holding a single red rose blossom in his hand. Crowley smiled as he used angelic magic to affix the flower to the outside of Aziraphale’s cloak.

“I love you, Alba,” Crowley said softly, and kissed him again.

They had nearly made it back to the Bentley before the world intruded once more. Children were feeding ducks by the pond, and Crowley joined them, of course, and chatted with them, and chatted with their parents, some of whom were rather attractive and most of whom wanted to touch the angel’s shoulder or arm or even hand.

Aziraphale could join the duck feeding, of course. He could also break up the gathering very quickly by mentioning a few rather nasty secrets about the humans talking with his angel: one of the women had a taste for being cruel to people she didn’t personally find attractive, another had stolen cash from a co-worker, one of the men had quite a temper. One was a single mother with an opioid addiction—but Aziraphale quickly cleared that one up, breaking the drug’s hold on her. He had standards, and one of them said that children would not be harmed. Fortunately, Crowley would never know, so he wouldn’t be able to make a big deal of it. 

Crowley would, however, be displeased if Aziraphale behaved rudely, so rather than bad-mouth the humans currently giving Crowley so much happiness, Aziraphale wandered over to the Bentley and waited there. And waited. And waited. Eventually, because the day was cold, Aziraphale opened the door and climbed into the car.

Aziraphale might have been friends with an angel for the last 6000 years, but he was not friends with the angel’s 88-year-old car. The best he could do was an acceptance of the importance the Bentley had in Crowley’s life, and he could only hope the car was doing her best to feel similarly about him. 

It seemed perhaps too optimistic a goal. Aziraphale sat for several minutes without feeling the air inside the car warm up at all. “He’ll be along,” Aziraphale growled. “Until then, you can put up with me. It’s not like I’m going to try to drive you.” Aziraphale doubted that the car would ever allow that anyway.

The car stayed icy cold. Aziraphale looked out the window and watched Crowley laugh with the bad-tempered man. He was surprised as the dashboard of the Bentley lit up and music began to play. _Queen_ , as usual.

_Oh jealousy you tripped me up, jealousy you brought me down._

“Oh, is that so? Well, I’d like to see what you would do if he looked at another _car!”_ Aziraphale snapped.

The music stopped abruptly and some red lights on the dashboard glowed angrily. 

Aziraphale nodded approvingly. “So you see.” He sighed and looked out the window again. “Anyway, we both know it really isn’t his fault. He can’t help being an angel. Can’t help being so stupidly _wonderful.”_

Amber lights glowed in response to that, the color of Crowley’s eyes. The atmosphere in the car started to lighten a little, and Aziraphale finally began to feel a bit warmer.

“What do _you_ give him, I wonder?” Aziraphale asked. “Is it the way you look? Or your personality? Your taste in music? You always seem up for an adventure, I think he likes that.”

 _Made in heaven, made in heaven,_ sang the radio.

Aziraphale scoffed. “Oh, you most certainly were not. You may have him fooled, but not me.”

_Oh yeah - I fell in love._

_In my defence what is there to say?_

Aziraphale almost laughed. “I dare say I know the feeling. But of course, you’re luckier than I. You don’t have to fight for his attention with anyone but me. Whereas I…” He looked out the window again. “I have quite a lot of competition.”

The Bentley was quiet for a moment. And then she began to play another song, but more softly. 

_Here we are, born to be kings, We're the princes of the universe._

“You are hardly a prince,” Aziraphale assured the car.

The dashboard lights flashed red. _Listen to the wise man!_

Aziraphale scowled at the car. “What—fine! I’m listening.”

The volume of the radio grew. _I am immortal. I have inside me blood of kings. I have no rival. No man can be my equal._

Aziraphale looked curiously at the dashboard. “Do you mean—me? I mean, I do know they’re only human. It’s just—”

_Got the world in my hands. I'm here for your love. And I'll make my stand._

“Make a stand,” Aziraphale said quietly. “I—I suppose I could. Something to remind him—” He gave the car a rather confused smile. “Well, ah, thank you, my dear. That really was quite kind—”

He was immediately cut off by very loud music. _I'm in love with my car, gotta feel for my automobile. I'm in love with my car._

“Yes, yes,” Aziraphale sighed. “Our little rivalry will continue. I wouldn’t have it any other way. And look, here he comes. Finally.”

But when Crowley climbed into the car, there was no smile on his face. Aziraphale grasped his hand. “Anthony, what is it?”

“There’s a kid—I can feel the mom, she’s terrified. I think it might be a kidnapping. It’s not far from here.”

The Bentley immediately started up and she pulled into traffic as soon as Crowley had gotten his door closed.

She continued to play _I’m in love with my car._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the comments on Tyto Alba, Roasted and Ghosted said, “I'm requesting a side story in this universe with Aziraphale and the Bentley.” I hope you liked it!
> 
> All lyrics are from Queen


	3. Chapter 3

“What’s happened?” Aziraphale asked in that soft, reassuring voice of his, and Crowley let it steal into his mind and calm his anxiety.

“Not sure,” he answered. “I just felt a mother in distress, unable to find her daughter.”

“And the child herself?”

“Nothing. How about you?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “I’m sorry, my dear, I have no secrets at the moment to match up with this. I might have more luck when we get to the scene.”

They reached it about two minutes later, the Bentley obeying her own interpretation of traffic laws and then parking where she liked, which happened to be in between two police cars. The humans didn’t take notice, though.

They were at a playground, partially covered in snow, but no one was on the swings or making snowmen now. Parents were holding their children and talking with police. The mother that Crowley had sensed was easy to find, a crying woman in a group of police officers, but Crowley’s heartache eased immensely when he saw that she was holding a sobbing three-year-old child in her arms.

Crowley shot a glance at Aziraphale, who nodded. “Go ahead.”

Crowley let his angelic aura ease his way into the center of things. The police looked past him, and the mother felt safe in handing her child to him.

Crowley shifted the little girl around so that she could see his face, and when he smiled at her, she stopped crying. “Oh, broken wrist, have you?” Crowley asked gently. “Don’t worry, Cora, we’ll make it good as new.”

As Crowley mended her injury with a wave of angelic power, Cora used her other hand to pull at a lock of his hair where it curled over his shoulder. “Why is your hair all red?” she asked.

“Oh, that,” Crowley answered, dropping his voice low. “You know what happened? I once had this  _ huge _ bowl of strawberries, and I sat there all day and all night, and I ate the  _ whole thing! _ Turned my hair bright red overnight!” He let his mouth fall open in surprise. Cora giggled.

The physical injury healed, Crowley reached out to Cora’s mind, and he could feel the wounds the fear had made, the pain of the broken wrist, the desperate longing to be safe again. “I tell you what,” Crowley said softly, “let’s just remember the part with Mommy, okay? And we’ll forget all the rest of what happened. Just a day at the park with Mommy, feeling safe.”

Cora smiled broadly at him and Crowley kissed her gently on the forehead. “All better, darling,” he told her. “Let’s go back to Mommy now, okay?”

The girl reached out her arms and her mother gratefully took her back. The mother could see Crowley but couldn’t entirely process the fact that he was there. Crowley put a gentle hand on her shoulder and tried to ease what pain he could. Unfortunately, it wasn’t usually a good idea to erase an adult’s memory. She would need the memories to aid the police, and sometimes it frightened people even more to have gaps in their recall. But Crowley tried to ease the panic and terror that were still sparking through her body like live wires. “You know she’s safe, Amanda,” he said quietly. “You believe it.”

Amanda shuddered, and then she leaned into Crowley’s touch, resting her head on his shoulder, Cora held between them. Crowley put his arms around them, letting his angelic aura envelop them for a moment, warm and protective.

Amanda calmed and Cora pulled at Crowley’s hair again. “Mommy,” she said, in a very serious voice, “too much strawberries!”

As Crowley laughed, he looked around to see where Aziraphale had gotten to. The demon was standing with a couple of police officers, his body language portraying the dispassionate attitude that he normally took on in situations like this— _ don’t notice me, don’t notice that I am noticing you.  _ Aziraphale had always been able to sort of fade away from human attention if he didn’t want to be dealing with anyone at the time. Crowley was glad for it, it gave the poor demon some peace from those who would otherwise be drawn in by his overly tempting form.

Crowley himself always noticed Aziraphale, though, and as Aziraphale looked at him now, he saw a flicker of something in his eyes, just for a second. A sadness. Crowley had seen it at lunch as well, and back at the cottage. Crowley wasn’t sure what was causing it, and it worried him.

When Crowley rejoined Aziraphale, he put his arm around him, pulling him close. “What are the police saying?” he asked.

“The kidnapper lured the child from the playground, and took off toward the woods—” Aziraphale pointed— “but he got surprised there by a couple of ten-year-old girls who were collecting branches to reinforce their snow fort. The man dropped the child, which is what injured her, and the girls collected her. One of them called the police on her cell phone, but they were already on their way, as Cora’s mother had called them. The police had the girls stay put with the child and intercepted them. The little one was only gone for about twenty minutes, but that’s a lifetime to a terrified parent.”

Crowley could still feel some of the mother’s fright, so he pulled Aziraphale even closer. The demon curled in against his side, warm and reassuring. “And the kidnapper?” Crowley asked.

“Long gone. And I don’t have a read on him, I’m afraid.”

“We need to find him.”

Aziraphale looked up at him with his brown eyes gone nearly black. “Anthony, I promise you that we will,” he said, in a voice that would probably have terrified Crowley if he’d ever heard it directed his way. In 6000 years, he had not.

Crowley kissed Aziraphale on the mouth. “What would I ever do without you, Alba?”

Aziraphale laughed a little. “I assure you, my dear, you are never going to find out.”

“Thank Somebody,” Crowley said fervently. He pointed to a couple of young girls talking with police. “Are those the ones who rescued Cora?”

“Yes. Very brave, those two.”

Crowley gave them a blessing that ensured they would enjoy success at school in their favorite subjects, which for one of them was art, and the other maths.

After that, Crowley was at a bit of a loss. “Someone must have seen where he went,” he said.

“I can only sense what’s being kept secret,” Aziraphale reminded him. “And of course, I never get everything. A few witnesses have come forward, but no one who saw him after he left Cora behind….” He drifted off and Crowley kept quiet, knowing Aziraphale was searching through his mental library. His eyes narrowed slightly and then he smiled. “There is one here who was too nervous to talk to the police.”

They walked toward the woods and then turned a corner around some bushes and found another little playground on the other side. A young man was sitting alone on a bench, looking at his phone. His body language was full of tension.

“Can you see what he knows?” Crowley asked.

“It’s a little confusing. Witnessing what he did nearly gave him a panic attack. Let me see what I can do.”

By the time Aziraphale sat down next to the young man, his whole demeanor had changed, and he seemed nothing more than a harmless, friendly, very likable older man with white hair and a ready smile. Quite obviously a retired librarian, better suited to curling up in an armchair with a book than trying to navigate the world at large. It was a persona that Crowley had seen Aziraphale assume many times, and it was flawless. It had to be.

Aziraphale’s job had been to sell secrets, primarily to humans, although sometimes to angels as well. (Demons were already damned and so could not risk their souls by a mortal sin. Thus they were unable to pay a sin for a secret, which made a few of them quite upset.) This mask that Aziraphale was wearing now was finely crafted demonic camouflaging, meant to put humans at ease, to charm them into a mood where they would be receptive to making a deal. It worked beautifully, and the young man had soon looked up from his phone and was laughing with Aziraphale, who looked unselfconsciously addled by the whole concept of a smartphone.

Crowley could have gone closer, but he’d listened to Aziraphale work so many temptations before that he could guess what was being said: Aziraphale would empathize, flatter, and then most likely ask for the man’s story in a nonthreatening way, playing on his instinctive desire to be kind to a friendly old man. Crowley didn’t go closer, because all he really wanted to do was to watch Aziraphale work, watch his body paint out the lure in graceful movements, watch his face flush a little with excitement, his eyes sparkle, his mouth make the loveliest smiles Crowley had ever seen.

Obviously, it should never have been the case that an archangel had spent thousands of years listening to a demon work temptations instead of interfering. But Aziraphale and Crowley had come to an agreement fairly early in their relationship, to stay out of the way of each other’s work, never sabotaging a temptation or a blessing. It had seemed a small concession to make in order to protect what was happening between them: a friendship that neither had expected, and underlying that, a truly earth-shaking level of trust that they’d felt instinctively for each other.

Aziraphale had fallen in love very quickly. Crowley had resisted it, and even after he could fight it no longer, they had kept apart. Their need to protect each other had been part of their love. They’d only really been together as a couple now for a few years, and in that time, something had happened to Crowley.

The thing was, Crowley was an angel, and angels were simple creatures: they were made of love, they gave love, they loved love, whether it was February 14th or not. So when Crowley had finally, finally given himself permission to be in love with Aziraphale, to show it openly, to feel it fully, his true nature had been given wings, as it were. Crowley was in love with Aziraphale in the way that only an angel could be. Desperately, overwhelmingly, beautifully in love with the demon sitting on the bench beside a frightened young man. Part of Crowley would have been perfectly content to simply watch Aziraphale talk for the entire rest of the day and part of him wanted to write poetry about the way Aziraphale’s fingers moved.

As soon as Aziraphale had accomplished his temptation, and Crowley had blessed the young man with freedom from his anxieties, Aziraphale led Crowley on the path the kidnapper had taken, across the playground and out onto the street. But there the trail was lost again.

“Do you feel anyone particularly scared in this area?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley frowned. “No, he must be blending in. So what now?”

“We should try walking in a few different directions, see if anything becomes clear to me as we get closer.”

Crowley put his arm around Aziraphale again as they started on their stroll. “You know, this brings back memories. You and me with a child in danger.”

“Yes, there have been a few times,” Aziraphale said softly. “I remember the first one very well. Egypt. You told me you wanted to be my friend.”

“Don’t know what the heaven I was thinking,” Crowley laughed.

“You certainly shocked me.” Aziraphale leaned his head on Crowley’s shoulder. “Was I in love with you even back then?”

“You were. You shocked me too, a demon who could love.” He tightened his arm around Aziraphale. “I never thought we’d have this, Alba, you with me like this. I didn’t even know how much I needed this, but dear Somebody, this is all I’ve ever wanted.”

Aziraphale didn’t answer, but the lightness in him, the love he felt for Crowley, bloomed as bright and healthy in his chest as did the rose on his cloak. Whatever sadness he’d been feeling was not present now. They walked in one direction and then another, watching the cars pass on the street, the February wind stir leafless branches of trees.

Aziraphale stopped suddenly. 

“What do you have?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale smiled up at him. “Someone just started helping him.”

oOo

The  _ someone  _ turned out to be a lady who lived in a flat not far from the playgrounds. She answered her door with fear in her eyes, which was partly assuaged when she saw that they weren’t the police. Aziraphale talked his way in and soon enough they were having tea at the woman’s kitchen table.

Aziraphale’s demeanor had changed again, but he didn’t look like a librarian now. He rested his arm on the table, leaning just slightly in the woman’s direction, watching her with a faint smile on his mouth that was friendly, and yet didn’t quite put her at ease. He tilted his head a little, his dark eyes fixed on the woman, in a move that quite clearly recalled a bird of prey. An owl perhaps.

“This is a lovely flat, Kathy,” Aziraphale said. The woman murmured out some sort of thanks, and Aziraphale looked away from her for a moment, his eyes traveling over what he could see of the place. Kathy visibly relaxed with Aziraphale’s attention elsewhere. 

“You’ve done quite nicely on a limited budget, haven’t you?” Aziraphale asked. “You have talent. I wonder what you could do if you had more funds.” He looked back at her and his mouth twisted up at the corners in a way that was most definitely not one of the lovely smiles he’d given the frightened young man on the bench.

Aziraphale fell silent, and Kathy hastened to fill the space. “Oh, yes, well, been meaning to replace the furniture, of course,” she said. “Had some lovely ideas for the windows, too. Nicer drapes, you know, and the floor, well.”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said. “Definitely needs updating.”

Kathy looked down at her floor in some distress.

“Well,” said Aziraphale, “the reason for my visit, Kathy, is that I am a man of some means, and nothing brings me greater pleasure than to share my wealth with those I take a fancy to.” He smiled more broadly now, and leaned closer. “Like you, my dear.”

“Oh,” Kathy said faintly, her eyes wide with surprise and the greed that Aziraphale was stoking in her.

“In fact, I would just love to see you have the budget to really let your talent shine.”

She blinked at him. “Why—why’ve you picked me?”

“Oh, well,” Aziraphale said, as if it were unimportant, “you happen to have something that I want. So I thought perhaps we might be able to make a deal.”

Kathy’s gaze shifted to Crowley, for the first time in a while. Crowley knew his role in this, and he simply smiled at her reassuringly.

“What do you mean a deal?” Kathy asked.

“It’s very simple,” Aziraphale answered. “A moment of your time, a bit of information, and in my gratitude, I would be happy to see that you have the funds you desire.”

“What kind of information?” she asked sharply.

“I believe,” said Aziraphale, leaning even closer to her, “that you were contacted about half an hour ago by a friend of yours. He told you that he’d tried something, made a mistake, and asked you for help. Specifically, he asked you for a safe location where he could hide out for a while, until you could come by and help him get away clear. Now, I know a great many things, my dear, but the location you gave him is not one of them. All I ask is that you fill in that one blank for me.”

“Tell—tell you where I sent Jackson?” Kathy asked. She was so far gone that she seemed not to notice she’d given them a name.

“You know, I make deals like this all the time,” Aziraphale told her, “but you’re one of the brighter ones. I like you. Enough that I might be amenable to doubling my usual price. Just don’t tell my boss.”

“Boss?” Kathy breathed.

Aziraphale looked displeased. “Oh, bit of a stickler he is. He prefers I work this sort of thing out with other methods, but I’d really hate to do it that way with you. It does get messy, and with the floors already in a state—”

Kathy was staring at Aziraphale now, and her breathing had gone shallow. It never failed: when Aziraphale bore the aspect of a bird of prey, his targets found themselves gradually turning into mice. 

“I can make a deal,” Kathy said.

Aziraphale smiled. “Splendid!” He waved a hand over the kitchen table and a large stack of paper money appeared. “Will that cover it?” he asked. And then he gasped lightly. “Oh, nearly forgot.” He closed one hand into a fist and when he opened it, a pair of diamond stud earrings rested in his palm. “Just like the set your mother gave your sister,” Aziraphale said softly. “Of course, they should have been yours, you’re the older one. I dare say your sister will be quite envious of this flat in a few weeks’ time.”

Kathy sat silent for a moment, and then she reached for the earrings.

oOo

“Is it bad,” Crowley asked, as they were on their way to the previously secret location of a would-be kidnapper, “if I find it really hot when you terrify people?”

Aziraphale laughed. “Yes.”

Crowley shrugged. “Well, in any case, there’s no harm done, and she was well rewarded.”

Aziraphale twisted his mouth a little. “It was a demonic gift. She might have been better off without it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Crowley said, pulling Aziraphale close. “I like  _ my  _ demonic gift very much.”

Aziraphale made a bit of an embarrassed growling noise. Crowley grinned at him. “You know, Alba, I asked you something a few days ago—”

“The answer is still no, dear.”

“My listeners have been asking—”

“You are aware, of course,” Aziraphale said, “that I cannot sense these listeners of yours the way you can. So you could be completely making up the fact that they want your rather infamous friend to join you on your radio show.”

“Angels don’t lie,” Crowley lied.

Aziraphale simply smiled at him. 

“I’ve been asking you for three months,” Crowley said.

“So you have.”

“One episode. Five minutes.”

“You know, I do listen to the show,” Aziraphale reminded him. “I haven’t missed a single broadcast, and the impression that your listeners must have of me after all those stories you’ve told—”

“I tell it like it is, Alba. Like you really are. No masks, no camouflage, none of your personas. I just tell them how kind you are—”

“After 6000 years,” Aziraphale sighed, “you’d think you’d have picked up  _ some _ idea of how to run a temptation.”

“Oh, actually, that would be a great segment for the show! You could walk us through the steps of a—”

Aziraphale growled again and grasped the lapel of Crowley’s coat, pulling the angel’s mouth against his own.

A little while later Crowley said, quite breathlessly, “And I thought you said I couldn’t pull off a temptation.”

Aziraphale was readjusting his ascot where it had gotten mussed. “And here I thought I was running a successful distraction.”

“Oh,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale smiled at him smugly. “Let’s go, my dear.”

The secret hiding place was a hotel, suitably nondescript. They went into the main office and Crowley performed a little bit of angelic misdirection on the clerk, drawing her into a discussion about a recent vacation to the seaside, while Aziraphale checked the computer for the right check-in time. 

When they knocked on the door of the room, there was no answer, but someone inside felt a spike of fear. Crowley waved his hand over the door, and the little light on the lock turned green. 

“I don’t need housekeeping!” a man’s voice cried as the door swung open. The elusive Jackson was standing by the wall, looking a mix of angry and scared. He was tall and thin, maybe thirty years old. Brown hair that looked unwashed.

Crowley glanced around. “I think he’s right, Alba. Room looks fine to me.”

“Mmm,” Aziraphale answered. “I believe he’s in need of something else, though.”

“I’ll do the honors,” Crowley announced.

Aziraphale looked at him in surprise. “My dear, I think I’m rather more equipped to handle this than you are.”

Crowley crossed his arms over his chest. “I can be plenty scary.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said graciously, “if you find someone who’s afraid of snakes.”

Jackson interrupted them. “Who the hell—”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Aziraphale said, “we’re trying to decide how best to terrify you enough to put you off of future kidnappings.”

“Are you afraid of snakes?” Crowley asked.

“I didn’t do any kidnapping,” Jackson protested, his face white as paper.

“Well, that is true,” Aziraphale allowed. “I should have said attempted kidnapping. You did make quite a mess of it.”

“I didn’t—”

“Didn’t what?” Aziraphale asked, cocking his head. “Kidnap a girl or make a mess of it?”

“I could do the wings,” Crowley said. “And I’ve got a living tattoo.”

“My dear, no one is frightened of angels.”

“Now, see, if that were true, we wouldn’t always be told to say  _ Be not afraid,  _ now would we?”

“Right, but when angels say  _ Be not afraid, _ it actually works. Demons don’t say  _ Be not afraid,  _ because there is no being unafraid of a demon.”

“Well, as for me personally—”

“Present company excepted,” Aziraphale said, with a roll of his eyes. “No, what’s needed here is a good old-fashioned hellish terrorizing, I think.”

“Like what, show your true form?” Crowley looked at Jackson with a frown. “I’m not sure he’d live through that.”

“Well, that’s to be expected,” Aziraphale said. “We do lose a few that way, but that makes it quite an effective method of behavior control. Can’t perform another kidnapping if you’re dead, can you?”

“You can’t kill me,” Jackson gasped out. “You can’t come in here and—”

“Of course we can,” Aziraphale said brightly. “We can go anywhere we like.” He clapped his hands together. “Now! What would you rather have, a little torturing in the hotel room here, or a tour of Hell?”

“Alba,” Crowley objected, “you are not setting a foot in Hell. I might not get you back.”

“Of course not, dear,” Aziraphale assured him. “I thought a virtual tour would do just as well. Only in his mind.” He tapped the side of his head and grinned at Jackson.

“Oh, well, then. Carry on.”

Jackson started moving, his legs trembling a bit. “Look, I don’t know who you are or how you know—but I don’t believe a word you are saying. Just—just get out of here.  _ Please.” _

Crowley sighed. “We could offer a third option,” he said. “Turning himself in to the police.”

“That’s awfully merciful of you,” Aziraphale complained.

“Yes. I’m an angel, if you’ll recall.” He looked to Jackson. “Well?”

The man shook his head. “Look, I won’t—do what you think I did. Never again.”

Aziraphale looked at him with his eyebrows raised. “Yes, we’re all on the same page there. Just trying to figure out the logistics.” When Jackson remained silent, Aziraphale shrugged. “I think that’s a no on the police, dear. My way, then.”

He rolled his shoulders a little and called his wings forth from the infernal dimension. Crowley smiled to see them, hues of cream and brown, light and shadowed, dancing across the tops of the wings before aligning themselves into orderly stripes toward the bottom. Crowley was well used to the sight of Aziraphale’s wings now, as the demon had discovered how much Crowley liked them. But Aziraphale was uncovering more than his wings now. The bits and pieces of his human mask were dropping away, revealing Aziraphale’s full demonic nature, what lay at his core, what had powered the library all those years.

Aziraphale’s teeth became fangs, and his eyes turned fully black, no brown or even white now, no pupil or iris, just open windows to an endless darkness. His fingers curled inward to become talon-like, sharpening themselves into claws, and a hellish aura began to shine around him, glowing dark red like a warning, moving across Aziraphale’s face and body like mist, occasionally hiding parts of him from sight.

It was, in Crowley’s opinion, hot as fuck.

It was also not Aziraphale’s true self, no more than any of the human personas or the barn owl alter that Aziraphale could take if he liked.

The real Aziraphale was the one piece of him that existed in every form, the one thing that never changed, something that probably should not have been there at all: a bit of brilliance, a power, a light that could never go out. The part that enabled Aziraphale to love.

It was his soul, perhaps. Demons weren’t supposed to have those, they lost them in the Fall. But Aziraphale was better than most at holding onto things: secrets, treasures, memories from Heaven. Aziraphale had always been his own creation, choosing to Fall, choosing how he lived his life after that, never completely obeying Hell’s rules or anyone else’s. Crowley couldn’t imagine Aziraphale giving up his soul just because it was expected of him. He was strong beyond belief.

But that one true part of him was also fragile. Crowley was the only one to ever see this piece, what Aziraphale was without any masks, and so he alone knew that Aziraphale could be uncertain, that he needed reassurance, that for a great while he’d been hopelessly lonely and worried that his best friend was too much of an angel to really care for him. Aziraphale wasn’t ashamed of being a demon, but it frightened him a bit, because he couldn’t change it. He’d decided not to be an angel any longer, but he was stuck now in his demonic nature, despite the fact that it didn’t completely suit him.

Crowley was a healer by nature, and when he had discovered this fragility inside of Aziraphale, he’d immediately begun soothing it with kind words, trust, companionship, admiration. Aziraphale’s worries had faded over the years under this gentle treatment, but there were times, like there had been in the past few days, where Aziraphale still appeared breakable, where he bent under some wind that Crowley could not see. The demon was prickly about this sort of thing, so Crowley hesitated to ask him about it. But he was determined to figure out what was bothering Aziraphale. Crowley would do anything to banish the sad look in his eyes.

At the moment, though, there was nothing but strength to Aziraphale, and Crowley caught his breath as Aziraphale completed his transformation into something truly astounding: powerful darkness, a glittering intelligence, and an inescapable sense that Aziraphale was something very old and very dangerous.

Jackson, of course, was not enjoying Aziraphale’s show nearly as much as Crowley was. His face was drained of blood and he was trembling, his body jerking about, his arms bouncing off the wall.

“Alba, you may have made your point,” Crowley said reluctantly.

Aziraphale didn’t really have easily identifiable facial expressions like this, it was more that his aura exuded different emotions, and right now he was amused. “Didn’t take much to frighten him after all,” he said.

Crowley snorted. “You can’t judge by my reaction. You’re legitimately terrifying.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Aziraphale said, seeming thoughtful. “If that were the case, I’d have to assume everyone wanted to fuck me when I’m like this.”

Crowley felt his face blaze red. “Do you have to do that?”

Aziraphale seemed to be laughing. “Yes, dear, I do.”

“Just focus, please.”

Aziraphale took a step toward Jackson, and the man tried to push himself further back into the wall. “Would you,” Aziraphale said softly, “like to contact the police now?”

Jackson gave a weak nod.

“I will allow that,” Aziraphale told him, “but I’m still going to leave you a little something to remember us by.” He reached out and took Jackson’s arm by the wrist. Jackson shrieked and tried to twist away, but Aziraphale possessed a demonic strength that Crowley had seen used to do things like lift carriages with people sitting in them. He was still as a statue as Jackson struggled against him. 

Aziraphale took one of his thumbs and pressed it to the inside of Jackson’s wrist. Jackson gave a cry of pain, and then Aziraphale released him. “When you’ve calmed down,” Aziraphale said, “when you’re sitting in your jail cell and you start to think back to this afternoon and wonder whether any of this was real, I want you to look at that little mark I just made, and remember that I could do a lot worse, if you ever give me reason to. And don’t forget, we can go anywhere we like.” 

oOo

It was on the way home that Crowley finally figured it out. Which was a good thing, but also fairly embarrassing that he hadn’t caught onto it earlier. They were outside of London, heading home, and having a rather risqué conversation that had started as Crowley complimenting Aziraphale’s demonic form and had ended up with both of them wondering if it might not be nicer to miracle themselves home and straight to bed.

Crowley had been worried about Aziraphale’s sadness, though, and he was trying to reassure him. “It isn’t just that form, Alba, you know that. You look gorgeous no matter what your outer shell is. It’s your nature, isn’t it? The most tempting creature to walk the Earth? I mean, it’s lucky for me you can fade away from humans, turn on your  _ leave me alone _ vibes, otherwise you’d be surrounded with people all the time like I…” Crowley’s voice trailed off.

He looked over at Aziraphale and saw the fragility there.  _ “Oh,”  _ he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the comments on Tyto Alba, Wren Truesong (waywren) suggested that when Aziraphale puts on his “friendly old man” disguise, he’s going into “Wol mode,” named after the cute owl in Winnie the Pooh, who spells his name Wol. So it’s really a kind of “friendly old owl” disguise for our owl demon.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated E.

Aziraphale had never tried to make Crowley love him. He’d had enough sexual fantasies about the angel to fill a library, but it had never occurred to Aziraphale that he might live any of them, because it had never seemed possible that Crowley could fall in love with him. If he had known that was an option, Aziraphale would have tried to orchestrate it. But he hadn’t, and so after 6000 years, loving Crowley was easy, but fighting for Crowley was a skill that Aziraphale had not yet learned. He’d been possessive of Crowley in the past, always. But he’d tried to keep it understated, knowing it wasn’t his place.

Now, however, it was. 

It was time to make a stand.

At the moment, Crowley was exactly where Aziraphale liked to have him: in his lap. The Bentley had pulled over to the side of the road, and Crowley had crossed the seat and straddled Aziraphale’s legs, cupping the demon’s face in his hands. But unfortunately, he wasn’t doing anything except talking.

“I’m sorry, Alba. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize—”

Aziraphale shushed him. “It’s your nature as an angel to attract...admirers, Anthony. I won’t begrudge you that.”

“I don’t care. It’s hurting you.”

Aziraphale grasped Crowley’s hands, holding them in his own. “You aren’t hurting me, darling. You never could. There is not one speck of darkness in your soul, I know that. I can sense it, remember? If you felt lust for anyone else it would be plain as day to me.”

“Don’t make light of it,” Crowley said softly. “I won’t see you look so sad.”

Aziraphale smiled. “You know, I think we might just need some couple’s time. The two of us alone, no interruptions.”

Crowley grinned, and his beautiful golden eyes lit up. “That sounds perfect.” And then he finally closed the space between them and kissed Aziraphale the way only Crowley could, the way no one else ever had: as an act of pure love, with all the strength of an archangel, all the soothing sweetness of Raphael the Healer. 

Aziraphale sighed into the kiss and shifted his hips a little. He’d been hard from the moment Crowley climbed into his lap, and Crowley had most definitely noticed. He welcomed Aziraphale’s movements with a gasp of his own, sliding his thighs just where Aziraphale needed.

But Aziraphale grasped Crowley’s waist and stilled him. The angel gave Aziraphale a curious look.

“I don’t think we ought to—not here, darling,” Aziraphale said. “I, ah, I don’t think the Bentley would like it.”

Crowley’s eyebrows shot up into his scarlet hair. “Oh! You’re right, I—” Then he frowned. “That’s—that’s very nice of you, Alba.”

“We might be working something out, she and I,” Aziraphale admitted.

Crowley broke into a very pleased smile at that. The car, for her part, roared back to life and pulled out onto the road for home as soon as Crowley put his seatbelt back on.

There still was no seatbelt for the passenger seat.

oOo

As soon as they were home, Crowley pulled Aziraphale back into kissing. Aziraphale indulged in it for a little while, holding Crowley tenderly, keeping everything light. Crowley did love this kind of kissing, something not so much physical as it was emotional. Oftentimes Aziraphale would open his eyes after worshiping at Crowley’s mouth this way and find that the room was filled with a beautiful golden glow of angelic happiness.

Eventually Crowley pulled away from Aziraphale’s mouth a little and kissed his neck, his jaw, his ear. And then he just leaned into Aziraphale with a beautiful smile on his face, and the room lit right up. Even Serpens was fully out and visible on Crowley’s arm, basking in the glow.

Aziraphale gave Serpens a gentle caress. “You’re not very subtle, my dear angel.”

Crowley laughed. “We aren’t, as a rule. But you’re no better, Alba, the love I can feel inside of you could power London.”

Aziraphale was a practiced tempter, which meant he possessed the ability to talk just about anybody into anything. But he’d never really been able to come up with a response to Crowley saying something like that. So he simply kissed Crowley on the forehead.

“Come to bed?” Crowley asked softly.

Aziraphale frowned at him. “And miss dinner?”

Crowley sighed good-naturedly. “No, of course, we wouldn’t want to do that.” He kissed Aziraphale again and released him. “What cuisine are you in the mood for?”

“Do you remember that little restaurant in Italy that did the wonderful ossobuco?”

“Italy?” Crowley asked.

“Yes, well, we haven’t been in a while.”

Crowley’s mouth twitched. “So the fact that they also had that Amarone I liked so much has nothing to do with it.”

“Did they?” Aziraphale asked. “Hmmm. Must have slipped my mind.”

“Nothing slips your mind, Aziraphale, that’s the point of you.”

Aziraphale smiled at him. “Shall we go, dear?”

It was a beautiful restaurant, and of course, a table awaited them, one with a view of the ocean. About ten minutes into the meal Crowley said, “I don’t remember this place having all the live plants and flowers, do you?”

Aziraphale shook his head.

“Or a string quartet.”

“Must be for Valentine’s Day.”

“Yes,” Crowley said dryly, “I imagine it is.”

“How’s the Amarone, dear?”

“It’s wonderful. You know, I especially don’t remember there being enough space in here for people to dance.”

“Are people dancing?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley couldn’t quite keep the amused smile off of his face. “Don’t suppose you’d like to join them.”

Aziraphale shrugged. “As you like.”

Demons, as a rule, did not dance well. But Aziraphale had found it necessary to learn quite a lot of human customs over the years in order to mix freely with human society. And because he was not, as it happened, in the habit of forgetting anything he’d learned, Aziraphale was quite talented at dancing.

Crowley had learned to dance as well, simply because his love of music was so great. But they had never danced together before they’d been given freedom from Heaven and Hell. It would have been far too much temptation for Aziraphale himself to hold Crowley so close. But now, he could revel in it, in the way his hand folded around Crowley’s narrow waist, the way their fingers clasped together, the way Crowley would laugh and smile and sometimes glow just a little. 

The thing about the glow, of course, was that it attracted the attention of nearby humans, who couldn’t quite see it, but were drawn to it nonetheless.

The humans had been watching and smiling at Crowley since they’d come in, and now they were even more enthralled. When a couple next to them stopped dancing and came over, Aziraphale missed a step. But Crowley gracefully swung him around and used the momentum to pull Aziraphale fully into his arms. He leaned close to Aziraphale’s ear and said, “You know what I _do_ remember about this place is that little private dining room they have.”

Aziraphale looked up at him in surprise, because the restaurant had not had a private dining room until just that instant, and Crowley smiled at him. “Perfect for couple’s time, wouldn’t you say?”

It was.

After dinner, they walked by the ocean, bundled up against the chill, looking at the night sky. Crowley pointed out all the stars, as he usually did, although Aziraphale had learned all their names by now, of course, knew their stories, when Crowley had made them, and why, and what colors they were up close. _Antares_ was a favorite: God Herself had liked it so much that She’d named a genus of pythons after it: _Antaresia,_ to remind her of the serpent who’d made the star. Later, on Earth, when Crowley had needed a first name, _Anthony_ had seemed to fit.

At some point, they started kissing again, there in the dark on the beach, and eventually Crowley groaned into Aziraphale’s ear. “Alba, I think we may want to head home now.”

Aziraphale just took his hand and led him to where _someone_ had started a bonfire in the sand, and oddly enough, it seemed that the whole stretch of beach there was shielded from human perception. There was a lovely blanket, and some champagne, and even a few flowers.

Crowley started laughing. “All right, you’ve made your point, no human admirer could pull off an evening like this for me.”

Aziraphale looked around. “Oh?” he asked, quite innocently. “Well, no, I suppose not.”

Crowley snorted. “Give me some credit, Aziraphale, after 6000 years with you I do know when I’m being tempted. It’s not like it’s the first time.” He stepped closer to the fire, warming himself, and his golden eyes reflected the flickering light. “I think that was what, Mesopotamia? I had done a miracle and had to move on, but you tempted me into an argument about mathematics so that I’d stay the evening. I was actually quite grateful, you know, I didn’t want to leave either. If you did any tempting before that, I didn’t notice, so good on you.” He stopped as his gaze went back to Aziraphale. “What is it?”

Aziraphale must have been giving away more of his internal mood than he’d meant to. Of course, Crowley was also maddeningly good at reading him. “Did it ever,” Aziraphale asked softly, and then corrected himself, _“does_ it ever bother you? That I’m so...possessive.”

Crowley gave him a surprised look. “You—” And then his face fell a little. “Oh, you don’t understand. That’s my fault, I’m so sorry. I think it’s—you and I couldn’t discuss important things with each other for so long, and it’s just habit still, isn’t it?”

Crowley came over and took Aziraphale’s hands in a fire-warmed grasp. “Aziraphale, you know I’ve spent all but the last few years of my life on Earth in hiding. But I always made sure you knew where I was. I told you my name, my history, all of my precious, dangerous secrets. I know it seemed bizarre, and I know that it confused you, but the thing was, the more I told you, the safer I felt.”

Aziraphale must have still looked shocked, because Crowley kissed his forehead lightly. “Heaven wanted to keep me so that they could manipulate me. You wanted to possess me too, but it was never about control. You wanted to cherish and protect me. I’ve always been one of your treasures, Alba, and there is nothing I have ever wanted more.”

Aziraphale couldn’t answer that, and Crowley understood, he drew Aziraphale in to rest against him, his head on Crowley’s shoulder. “You’re safe with me, too,” he whispered. “I’ve seen all of you, and there is not one part of you that I don’t love.” Aziraphale closed his eyes tightly against tears, and Crowley probably sensed it, because he quickly lessened the tension of the moment, murmuring against Aziraphale’s ear, “But if you make me wait any longer to make love with you, I am going to go back to that restaurant and pick up a different date.”

Aziraphale both growled and laughed. “Well, in that case, I think I really ought to show you a few other things that humans can’t do for you.”

He could feel the slight tremor that went through Crowley’s body in response and he pulled back to look him in the eyes. “Is that all right with you?”

Crowley grinned at him. “It sounds wonderful.”

Aziraphale gave him a pleased look. “Excellent. But in order to do that we need to establish a safeword. Is _garden_ still all right?”

“Yes. _Garden_ as the safe word,” Crowley confirmed.

“Lovely.” Aziraphale kissed him softly and led him over to the blanket on the sand. “So if this gets too intense, Anthony, safeword, and we’ll take a break. We’re in no hurry, and there is no end goal here. We’re just going to enjoy our evening.” He kissed Crowley again, he couldn’t help it. “You are indeed my most precious treasure, and I won’t see you treated roughly.”

Crowley kissed him back. For a while. When they broke apart, he whispered, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Alba.”

“You’re still a day early,” Aziraphale reminded him. “This is just the practice day. We’re going to have to do this all over again tomorrow night, you know.”

Crowley groaned and rested his head against Aziraphale’s shoulder. “You’re going to be the death of me, you know that.”

Aziraphale tutted. “Nonsense. Now, darling, it’s plenty warm here by the fire, let’s take your coat off.”

Crowley slipped out of his coat. “Do you want me to take anything else off?”

“No, dear, I’ll do that.”

When Aziraphale didn’t reach for him again, Crowley asked, “Well?”

Aziraphale gave him an amused look. “Patience, Anthony. Now, I think that earlier today you expressed an opinion about finding it arousing when I terrify people. Of course, there’s no one here for me to frighten at the moment, and since you have sadly proven yourself immune—”

Crowley looked at him in surprise. “When did you ever try to terrify me?”

Aziraphale unfastened his own cloak and laid it on the blanket, out of the sand, careful with the rose blossom. “Crete. 3200 BC or so. I thought you’d be safer without me, so I put on my full demonic form and chased you off.”

“Oh, that,” Crowley said with a dismissive laugh. “You didn’t mean it.”

“You were meant to think I did.”

Crowley made an odd vocal noise. “Eh…yeah, but if you’re dealing with an angel, you can’t hide the fact that you’re doing something out of love. It just made you seem all that much more wonderful, I’m afraid.”

Aziraphale sighed and occupied himself with removing his jacket, noting how closely Crowley’s eyes followed his movements. “In any case,” he said, “there needs to be a little clarification on the issue. You are far too much of an angel, my dear, to actually take pleasure out of someone being frightened. What arouses you is not human fear but demonic power.” He tilted his head a little and gave him an assessing look. “Which is still not really appropriate for an angel, but it’s at least a lesser misstep.”

“Is that so?” Crowley asked, looking amused.

Aziraphale hummed in response. “For example, you are very fond of this sort of thing, my dear.” He held up his hands and let them curl into talons with long black claws. Crowley’s breathing hitched just a little, and Aziraphale smiled at him. “Now, then, I think you wanted your clothes removed?”

It was torturously slow going with the claws, but Crowley’s flower-like bow tie ended up on the blanket, and his golden vest after it. His neck and chest bloomed with light red scratches as Aziraphale unbuttoned his shirt. Gradually, the constellation Serpens appeared, rippling around Crowley’s upper arm and chest. Aziraphale gave it plenty of room to move where it liked, which at times like this, was usually up beneath Crowley’s hair. It peeked out a bit on Crowley’s forehead, and Aziraphale gave it a light touch with the back of his hand.

The rest of Crowley he did not handle so gently. Crowley had given Aziraphale permission before to scratch harder, to break the skin, but Aziraphale had vetoed it, too uncomfortable with actually injuring his angel. Crowley had accepted that, of course. They might have learned some very bad communication skills over the millennia, but Aziraphale was far too experienced with sex to do anything without a very frank running discussion going on. (There had been absolutely no reason that someone choosing to pay the sin of lust to Aziraphale in exchange for a secret should have a bad experience with it.)

When Crowley’s shirt was gone as well, Aziraphale slid his hands around Crowley’s waist and gently turned him. His talons passed lightly over the unmarked skin of Crowley’s back at first, and then they pressed in a little, tracing themselves up and down right where Crowley’s wings would erupt if he chose. It was a highly sensitive area. Crowley groaned. “Alba, _please.”_

Aziraphale stepped up so that his body was flush behind Crowley’s and gently shushed him, his lips against Crowley’s neck. But he acted quite quickly, tangling his talons in Crowley’s scarlet hair and pulling backward enough to expose his neck. Aziraphale let his teeth form sharp fangs and he dragged them across the angel’s pulse point, biting just enough to give Crowley a twinge of pain and then soothing it with his mouth afterward.

Crowley’s knees buckled a little and Aziraphale caught him with a laugh. “I’m sorry, dear, this is probably easier done lying down.” He bore Crowley to the blanket and leaned over him, marking up the other side of his neck with his teeth.

Crowley started shaking a little, pressing into the touches but also flinching away from them a little, and Aziraphale pulled back. “Are you all right, darling?”

“I’m good,” Crowley said, a little breathless. He reached up for Aziraphale’s ascot, pulling it away and then unbuttoning his vest and shirt beneath it. And then, with his hands on Aziraphale’s bare skin, he brought him close enough to kiss him, to run his tongue over the fangs in Aziraphale’s mouth. When Aziraphale started moaning, Crowley took advantage of his faltering control, and pulled the demon on top of him, spreading his legs until Aziraphale’s hard cock rested right where he wanted it to.

“Fuck,” Aziraphale groaned, unable to keep from thrusting against the angel a few times and Crowley gave a little whine of need.

“Yes, all right, my love,” Aziraphale whispered, and he undid the fastenings of Crowley’s trousers with a hand turned entirely human again. He slid his fingers into Crowley’s underwear and found him dripping wet. Aziraphale felt his cock twitch as two of his fingers slipped easily into Crowley’s cunt, right into the most intimate part of him.

Crowley groaned, and Aziraphale made quick work of it, sliding his fingers where Crowley needed, rubbing and circling at just the right speed, until Crowley gasped out his climax, throwing his head back and tilting his hips up against Aziraphale’s hand.

“Aziraphale, please,” he whispered after.

Aziraphale laughed again. “Patience, darling.” And then he let Crowley see him lick his fingers clean.

Crowley made another needful noise. Aziraphale shushed him and sat back, removing his vest and shirt so that he was bare to the waist, as Crowley was. And then he unfolded his wings, stretching them out into the night. Crowley sighed, and Aziraphale leaned forward to kiss him. 

When he rose back up, his eyes had gone full black and Crowley made a louder, hungrier noise. He grasped onto Aziraphale’s arms. “Alba—you do know, don’t you? It’s not the demonic power. It’s just you. I love all the different sides of you, including the supposedly scary ones.”

“Supposedly scary?” Aziraphale growled, to cover the flush on his face.

Crowley grinned at him. “Look at you. Couldn’t frighten a mouse.”

Aziraphale traced a talon down Crowley’s chest and stomach. “If you want harsher treatment, my dear, you can just ask for it.”

“It does kind of go with your outfit,” Crowley pointed out.

Aziraphale shook his shoulders a bit and let his red, misty aura surround him, the last piece of his demonic form. He leaned down to kiss Crowley tenderly. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised.

He let himself linger on Crowley’s look of trust for a moment, and then vanished the rest of their clothes. Crowley gasped at the feeling and gasped again when Aziraphale leaned over him and tangled a hand in his hair, holding him fast against the blanket. With his other hand, Aziraphale drew up Crowley’s thighs and then tilted forward enough to sink his cock fully into Crowley’s cunt in one hard thrust.

Crowley moaned out, _“Please,”_ and bared his neck for Aziraphale’s biting.

Aziraphale took the invitation, nipping at Crowley’s throat with his fangs, leaving marks but not a drop of blood lost from his angel. Aziraphale fucked him forcefully though, folding Crowley’s legs up and losing himself in the pleasure of driving his cock into the wet heat of the angel again and again. This time he didn’t rush Crowley’s orgasm, but approached it at a more meandering pace. Crowley sank his fingers into Aziraphale’s hair, opening his body beneath him so that Aziraphale could be as close to him as possible.

When Crowley started to tremble, Aziraphale gently used his fingers and a new angle of thrusts to give Crowley a powerful and lingering climax. When he was in the last tremors of it, Aziraphale held down Crowley’s arms above his head as he chased his own pleasure in the angel’s body. Crowley cried out his encouragement, crossing his ankles behind Aziraphale’s back to pull him in. When his feet rose high enough to brush the bottom of Aziraphale’s wings, Aziraphale cried out and came hard, surprising himself.

“Mmmm,” Crowley said, looking half lazy with satisfaction and half still terribly aroused. “You do like a little wing play, don’t you, Alba?”

Aziraphale made some noise in response, but then Crowley had sat up and moved behind Aziraphale. Very gently, he slid his fingers through the feathers at the top of Aziraphale’s left wing.

“Crowley—” Aziraphale said, but could go no further.

Crowley pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. “Humans can’t do this either,” he reminded him, and then Aziraphale was lost to the pleasure of it, Crowley’s hands soothing and sweet, the touch of a healer.

Of course, Crowley was talking as well, which was a little harder to take. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Alba. These wings, oh, my love, no one has wings like this, these colors, this softness, and the strength of them under my hands. And this aura of yours. It’s more beautiful than the firelight. It’s like starlight, right from the center of a star. Never thought I’d even get to see it again, but here it is, in my hands once more.”

Aziraphale managed to say, _“Anthony,”_ and Crowley understood, he quieted as he finished his gentle preening. Then he came around and climbed into Aziraphale’s lap, sinking down onto Aziraphale’s re-hardened cock with a moan. They moved in silence for a few moments, and then Crowley gave Aziraphale a hesitant look. “Have to tell you about your eyes, Alba.”

Aziraphale broke into a laugh, and rested his head against Crowley’s. “If you must.”

“They’re so beautiful. Even black like this, they’re not real darkness. You’re there beneath them, and your true self is nothing but light. Even if I can’t see it, I can sense it. Always have.”

Aziraphale shut Crowley up by kissing him, and the angel moaned into his mouth, moving faster on Aziraphale’s cock, and soon crying out his climax, held tightly in Aziraphale’s arms. Aziraphale was gentler with him then, laying back on the blanket so that Crowley could ride him at whatever speed he needed. After his next orgasm, he stilled, obviously a little sore. Aziraphale moved gently out of him and turned him so that he lay on the blanket.

Crowley stretched out, and for a minute, he just looked up at Aziraphale with a sated smile on his face. But then he said, “Let me finish you off, Alba?”

“Only if you want to.”

Crowley grinned and came up to his knees, sliding in between Aziraphale’s legs and taking his cock into his mouth. Aziraphale groaned and let his head fall back. Crowley had been a quick learner when it came to this, and he knew what Aziraphale liked, where to put his tongue, when to be gentle and when to suck harder. And of course, he was good at reading Aziraphale’s signals. Crowley raised his head and looked up at Aziraphale with a smile, and said softly, “Go ahead.”

Aziraphale did not have the presence of mind to protest that invitation, and he sank one taloned hand into Crowley’s red curls to hold him steady as he moved his hips to slide his cock in and out of Crowley’s mouth. Crowley took him in deep with every thrust and then applied a little suction as Aziraphale pulled away. It was a mind-bending pleasure, and when Crowley gave a deep moan, showing how much he was enjoying it, Aziraphale was done for. His cock spurted into Crowley’s mouth and Crowley swallowed him down.

They lay on the blanket together for a while after that, talking, and watching stars, and holding hands. Aziraphale had let his demonic form fade back into the occult plane, and so his hand was quite human again. Eventually the sky started to lighten, and Crowley raised up on one elbow and brought Aziraphale’s fingers to his mouth for a kiss. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Alba. There aren’t words to say how much I love you.”


	5. Chapter 5

Crowley leaned into his microphone as the song  _ You’re My Best Friend  _ drew to a close. “Happy Valentine’s Day, my friends! I hope all of you out there are feeling the love today. Valentine’s Day isn’t just for couples, of course, it’s about affection in all forms. Parents, children, family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and of course, pets! If you’re feeling alone today, you might head on down to your local animal shelter. Even if you can’t adopt right now, a few minutes with a kitten or a big, goofy-looking senior dog can brighten your day, and cheer up a few animals as well. If that’s not your thing, you could hang a birdfeeder outside your place, because you know in this weather, it will be appreciated! There are countless ways to show love. But remember, you are worthy of both giving and receiving love in so many ways, each one of you. Never forget that.

“And _now,_ my friends, I have a special treat, because for the first time ever, I have a guest on my show, and of course, it’s none other than my best friend! If you follow the show, you have heard a whole lot about my friend, and he’s not terribly happy about all what I’ve told you, but it turns out that I _do,_ in fact, know how to work a temptation, because he’s agreed to come on the show anyway.”

Aziraphale snorted. “You know how to bludgeon me over the head is what you know how to do. No finesse.” They were sitting in Crowley’s office, at the radio desk. Aziraphale didn’t bother to lean into the microphone, but he was certain that Crowley had worked his usual magic over the laws of physics and it would pick him up just fine.

“Well, I may have actually just begged,” Crowley admitted, but he was unable to wipe off the grin he’d been wearing since Aziraphale had agreed to this. “And yet all’s well that ends well, because this is the perfect day for my friend to come on my show, as he is the person I love best in all the world, and it is, in fact, Valentine’s Day, which is an anniversary of sorts for us.”

Aziraphale attempted to speak kindly, despite his awkwardness. “So it is, my dear. I have a present for you, in fact.”

Crowley’s face lit up even more. “A present for me?”

Aziraphale handed him an envelope and Crowley narrated. “So I’ve been given something here, folks. It’s flat enough to fit in an envelope, so probably not a mug that says  _ angel  _ on it, I’m guessing. Also not a bouquet of flowers or a tin of chocolates. It’s—it’s two clear stickers here, and they say  _ Objects in mirror are losing.” _

He looked at Aziraphale in complete surprise. “These are for the Bentley.”

“Yes, you put them on the side mirrors. Thought she’d like them.”

Aziraphale took some pride in the fact that he’d made Crowley stumble over his words live on the radio. “You—you gave me a Val—for the Bentley?”

“It’s possible I owe her something,” Aziraphale conceded.

Crowley looked delighted. “Oh, I—thank you.” He leaned over and gave Aziraphale a kiss. “I can’t believe it. This is amazing!”

“So you’ve said,” Aziraphale pointed out.

Crowley just kept grinning. “All right, well, now—oh, I’ve just gotten a note—”

“You did not just get a note,” Aziraphale cut in.

Crowley looked at Aziraphale in surprise again. “You know the notes are a standard gag on this show.”

“They aren’t funny.”

“Just because you don’t like the joke doesn’t mean it’s not funny. If you’re going to interrupt the show gags I’ll have to ban you. ”

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale said. “That would be just terrible.”

Crowley huffed at him. “All right folks, I’ve just gotten an  _ imaginary _ note, and this note reminds me that never once have I ever spoken my friend’s name on this show. It used to be that we had to keep our friendship under wraps, but that hasn’t been the case for a while, so here you are: for the first time ever I will say my friend’s name on the radio. Aziraphale, will you marry me?”

Aziraphale choked on a breath of air. He stared at Crowley, who was wearing a very smug smile. And then, with growing amusement at Aziraphale’s continued coughing, Crowley pulled out a ring box and opened it. Inside was a gold ring fashioned to look like a coiled snake whose head rested on his tail.

“This is why I wanted you to come on the show,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale finally managed to take in a breath. “You’ve been asking me to come on the show for months.”

“Yup.”

“You mean this  _ entire _ time you were planning to—”

“Yup.” 

“You bastard.”

Crowley grinned. “I actually don’t know if it’s something you’re interested in, marriage, but—”

Aziraphale coughed again. “You’re confused as to whether or not I’d like you to go about with my ring on your finger?”

“Oh, I  _ thought  _ you might say that,” Crowley announced with a grin, and he pulled from his pocket another ring box. This one he handed to Aziraphale. Inside was a silver ring that had been fashioned into the distinctive face of the barn owl, with tiny black jewels for eyes.

_ “Oh,”  _ said Aziraphale.

“I love you, Alba,” Crowley said softly. “I want to be yours and I want you to be mine. We always have been, really, but I want to make sure everyone knows it.” He held out his left hand, palm down, and Serpens twined its stars around his ring finger, impatient for the answer. “What do you say?”

“Anthony,” Aziraphale breathed. “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The barn owl ring is a real thing: if you google it, you can find it. There is a jeweler on Etsy who makes them, but I didn’t link to it because I have no idea who they are and I didn’t want it to look like I was giving an endorsement.
> 
> The “objects in mirror are losing” stickers are also real and can be purchased online. Drive safe, people.

**Author's Note:**

> I love this Aziraphale, who is legitimately a very powerful, terrifying demon, but he falls in love with an angel, and he just doesn’t know what else to do except to be super soft for him and treat him as gently as possible, even when he’s not sure if Crowley can ever love him back. And then when Crowley does start to love him openly, he’s a total angel about it, and says "I love you" every two seconds and the poor demon just has no idea what do with a super affectionate archangel who’s always telling him how wonderful and hot he is. Aziraphale does want Crowley to love him and belong to him, and so when he gets that, he tries to act like this is all part of the plan, and he’s in control, but I think his one brain cell can only think the words "angel," "soft," and "help!" And Crowley is well aware of this, of course, and mostly he thinks it's sweet and endearing but there's a part of him that's just enough of a bastard to find it fucking hilarious.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are so appreciated! And please feel free to check out our other works: [AarinsRitsuka (Sparky)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AarinsRitsuka) & [HolyCatsAndRabbits (Dannye Chase)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolyCatsAndRabbits).
> 
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